Introduction
In this Knowledge Roundup by the Global Grassroots Support Network (GGSN) they asked their community for insights and learnings about:
How do we encourage activists to celebrate wins, and come back from losses using rest and reflection? How can activists counter or realize that you cannot pour from an empty cup?
Here are their answers, insights and learnings they have kindly shared with you below.
Insights and Learnings
1. Keep the Big picture in Mind
Bill Moyers historic perspective on social movements is useful when working with activists in a period of low morale. Bill was a long-term activist in the States throughout the civil rights movement and then the anti-nuclear movement, and involved for decades in fights that took a very long time to get to a point of victory.
He noticed every movement has peaks and valleys and ups and downs. Even after a really exciting moment of power, there’s often a crash afterwards where it feels like nothing’s working anymore. Moyer also noticed that a big moment is typically followed with the feeling of activist failure. He saw this pattern over and over again in social movements.
For example, the pandemic setback was really hard on climate justice movements that were going strong in 2019 and the beginning of 2020. It felt like the power of 2019 totally disappeared. But showing activists that peaks and valleys are part of movement building helps them to persevere.
It is grounding for young activists to see that these patterns have always been there, and it doesn’t mean that it’s over when things are slower. It may be a time to regroup and think together and reorganize. But that doesn’t mean that the fight is over or hopeless.
2. Providing Spaces for Reflection
Recognizing when work is not possible, and making space for sharing of emotions. For example, during pandemic lockdown, a group that was working with climate justice activists and had all of their programming around organizing, campaigning and building power realized that normal organizing just wasn’t possible.
Since nobody was really in that mindset, they opened a space for sharing grief. It was powerful, because it responded to where people in the movement were at. It was a healing moment, to talk of hopelessness and grief at a very difficult time.
3. Care as an Everyday Practice
Integrate care as an everyday practice, for example by doing regular check ins in the groups, to have a sense of how people are doing, where they’re at. You can start with gratitude, and continue with honoring the pain, making space for it. These regular practices of care are important to build. Work That Reconnects has open resources on practices of care and Joanna Macy wrote a book on this.
4. Unpacking Narratives on Care and Using Peer Exchange
To the question of challenging pouring from an empty cup, recognizing the appropriation of care by oppressive narratives is important, to be able to establish a true culture of care.
The Climate Justice Organizing Hub holds a 2 hour care 101 workshop (slides here). In this workshop, we explore: How have colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy co-opted what care means? How has it impacted our response to communities and isolated us, and commodified the concept of care. What could a culture of care look like? These are good reflections to hold between big campaign moments, to reflect on our ideas about care needing to be ‘earned’, and to sustain long-term.
After the first workshop, there is a Care learning circle (part 2 of the Climate Justice Organizing Hub’s care series) and these learning circles use peer-to-peer sharing of knowledge. What had been shared by participants on building cultures of care was summarized in one of these offerings on the following wiki page. This format might be helpful after a loss to move through the difficult emotions that come with that, together.
5. The Importance of Rest
Planning rest. Peaks of activity, followed by valleys, is important. It’s difficult to do, especially in our reactive environments. Try to plan for what is the next moment? What is the next thing you’re going to do to care for yourself, for yourself or being with others, for being outside of the work or the activism. Here is a resource that Amnesty International developed with staff youth activists together on well-being and resilience for youth activists.
6. The Individual Responsibility Paradigm needs to be Challenged
For example, a youth activist who was a leader in a student protest was constantly getting the message that she was the hope. It was great to hear on one level, but on the other it was putting a burden on her and a feeling of needing to do more. As activists already have enough on their shoulders, it is important to be careful about positive messages that can put pressure on them and lead them to push themselves too much.
7. Make Time to Connect and Celebrate
Holding space to share how people are doing, to share struggles and challenges, collective rebuilding or collective hope. The moments to connect are super important, even if it’s in the wake of a defeat, or especially in the wake of a success.
Celebrate! Make time to celebrate, including small wins within a bigger defeat, and look for these moments and for these little things to celebrate.
About and Attribution
Knowledge roundups are created in response to questions raised by members of the Global Grassroots Support Network (GGSN). The GGSN is an initiative building upon the Blueprints for Change project. The GGSN is building a community of practice that brings together projects supporting grassroots justice-oriented** activist groups in multiple regions and continents. The objective is to share knowledge around common challenges that these groups face, and how each project has solved for them. Questions are raised to other GGSN members to compile the knowledge and resources we have to respond.
**See this document for the GGSN definition of “grassroots.”